Sunday, 25 September 2016

Smooth Newt, Haworth's Pug, my first Acrocercops and a return to Claxton Manor

The biggest surprise when I went down to check the moths on 5th August was a Smooth Newt on the sheet. I've had a few fleeting glimpses of newts over the years but it's been a long time since I have had the opportunity to have a really good look at one.

Next day I saw a Southern Hawker in the garden - the first time I've positively identified one here.

That evening I joined others for the Norfolk Moth Survey event at Claxton Manor. We went here last year and had a very successful time but this time it was later in the season and in far from perfect weather being quite clear and cool as well as a bit breezy. The site where I set up was particularly challenging due to the breeze and the variety of moths coming to my light was very poor.

One feature of the night was good numbers of Bactra (30+) and I couldn't help but notice the remarkable variety in types shown. I was pretty confident some would turn out to be Mottled Marbles Bactra furfurana although others looked like typical Rush Marbles Bactra lancealana. I retained 5, selecting examples that showed a variety of appearances but none like typical lancealana. Afterwards Ken mentioned that he had had a similar experience where he was trapping with a range of different-looking individuals, and he too retained a couple for checking. Ken came back with the results of his first - they were 2 Rush Marbles Bactra lancealana. Perhaps all mine would turn out to be the much commoner lancealana after all? Eventually I dissected mine and the first one, a male, was clearly Mottled Marble Bactra furfurana. The other four were all females and while these looked promising for furfurana too I struggled to find really clear images of female genitalia of the various Bactra species to compare them too. Eventually I decided to hunt out a typical-looking lancealana so I could compare them to that - fortunately the first one I found was a female and its genitalia were quite clearly different from the Claxton Manor examples. At last I was satisfied to conclude that all 5 of the individuals I retained (and probably 10+ of the individuals seen) were Mottled Marbles Bactra furfurana.

I managed to get along to Ben's trap briefly and added Ringed China-mark Parapoynx stratiotata, Garden Tiger and 2Twin-spotted Wainscots to the tally, along with Common Wave along the track on the way. I think it was after we'd packed up and we caught up with the others that I saw a Reed Dagger in someone's pot and two Coleophora which subsequently proved to be Orache Case-bearer Coleophora saxicolella (only my third) and Glasswort Case-bearer Coleophora salicorniae (a new moth for me).

Twin-spotted Wainscot, Claxton Manor, 6th August

So far I haven't worked out what this Ichneumon wasp was:

Ichneumon sp., Claxton Manor, 6th August

I always leave my home trap on when I go out on trips like this but it's not often I fair better at home than out in interesting habitat with a group of others. On this occasion with a slightly disappointing night out at Claxton I ended up doing rather better at home with a couple of decent moths here. But I'll leave that for my next post...